Yes, this is the real Barney, not stock photos. I love these pictures of him.
Well today is the last installment about Barney. Or should I say the last planned one? I doubt he will ever be far from me for those you care about are never more than a thought away. Although they may be gone they live on in our minds and hearts as we reminisce about long ago forgotten days. I do warn you though... this installment might be a tad long. You might want to sit back, take your shoes off and get your favorite beverage. (I just know how I am. lol)
In spite of being married multiple times, I have led a pretty solitary life. People pass through our lives on their way to their own destinies. Some stay for a time, others just blip in and then out, and if we are really lucky, we have a few who stay for a very long time.
Family usually takes up the slack for those times when people leave us. They support us in our grieving and loss. It isn't easy to lose friends. They move and really mean to stay in touch, but life has a way of taking us down paths we never even knew existed. And then sometimes the time passes so quickly that we can lose those friends to illness and we are left wondering why we never kept in touch.
God never saw fit to place children in my life; not my own anyway. As I look back, it's probably just as well. I haven't always been responsible and hard working. All that might have changed. Who knows? But I have come to trust in His judgment and no longer feel left out or resentful.
Family on the other hand has always been a sore spot with me. The Waltons we weren't. In my family a day of civility was a special day. Dysfunction functions very well. But all I will say about that is there are some hurts a person can never get over. I realize no one is without their troubles. We only need to look as far as the news for that fact. Elvis, the Kennedys, and the list goes on. No amount of money could save any of them from their heartaches. We all have some. So I'm not going to make this a forum for my issues with family. I mention it to make clear the impact that love can have on an individual... no matter where it comes from.
In lieu of children... and family... and many times, friends... I have filled my life with either working or my pets. I would be hard pressed to list all those pets here. But they each have left paw prints on my soul.
Education comes at a price. Any economist will tell you that. But there's no teacher like life itself. Experience is not the best lesson; it's the only lesson. In a seeming vacuum at times, I lamented my life with its unexpected circumstances, poor choices and lost opportunities. I cried for years over what I thought was life's unfairness. That was partially because no one had ever told me that life wasn't fair or that it wasn't supposed to be.
Childlike, I believed all the foolishness I had been taught at an early age. You know the drill. You can have ANYthing if you work hard enough. Fairy tales do comes true. Oh, and how about this one? Honesty is the best policy.
Well, I've worked hard my whole life and believe me, I have rarely gotten anything I desired. Prince Charming hasn't ridden up on his white horse yet either. And although I've led an honest life, dishonesty seems to pay more. My philosophy about honesty is that if a person is honest because they might get caught, then their honesty is corrupt.
At this point you may be wondering what all this has to do with Barney. I'm getting to it... I promise. haha
A friend tells me that the only thing we can be sure of is never ending change. It's not a great thing to hear when you're looking for stability and security. And yet, there is comfort in the honesty and truth of it all. I never did like sugar coating the truth.
I mentioned education earlier. Some are quicker than others. Sometimes the truth is in your hands. Why don't we see it? Maybe it's because it's just too damn painful.
Barney had been failing for about a year. I didn't want to see it. What would I do without him? He listened to all my woes. He heard every good thing that happened to me. He knew all my secrets and insecurities. He was the child I never bore, the family I only dreamed of and the friend who never left or hurt me.
A year is a long time to see the failing and know the knowing without realizing how important it is to just enjoy the moment. But as I voiced my concerns a friend came to my aid. And so I made a decision to just let Barney be happy in whatever time he had left. Actually, he lived longer than he should have. I'd like to think he only left when he knew I could handle it.
This last year has been one of profound change in my life. There has come an acceptance of many things that prior to that I could not or would not believe, much less accept. Ghosts from the past have been laid to rest. Family issues, broken relationships, lost loves, undeniable pain... it has mostly been resolved. And throughout the process Barney listened to all the heartache and got drenched by all the tears.
You may think that's silly. But I can tell you that his unconditional love for me no matter my state of mind was a true eye opener for me. For all he did for me, I feel somewhat inferior in what I did for him. I got the friend I was looking for. I had the family I wanted. He saw me through it all.
So let me tell you about his old soul.
As I told you before, he didn't like being outside at all. But that didn't mean he didn't have his own little adventures inside. We lived in the country for the most part. That brings with it... the rodents. Every year when the weather would start to turn in the Fall, the rodents always seemed to find their way in to keep warm. Over the years I would say Barney probably caught over 400 mice. ( One place I thought we had stepped into a Stephen King novel. They came in in droves. lol )
One night I was sitting at the kitchen table just finishing eating. Barney was on the rung of one of the other chairs making all kinds of noise. I bent down and looked to see him playing with one of his catnip mice. He'd pick it up and throw it up a little and then catch it. He did that a lot. It always made me smile to see how he could amuse himself.
All of a sudden his mouse got legs and ran across the floor. "Oh my God, I thought, it's a real mouse." And I got up really fast and ran over just in time to see him corner the mouse. He just sat there watching him and I could see the mouse was visibly shaken (not stirred). Here was this huge entity sitting in front of him with no escape and an even bigger one watching him. I could only imagine what was going through his poor little mind.
Not one who likes to witness such things, I wanted to walk away. But a bigger part of me wanted to make sure Barney got him and he wasn't running around getting into the food. The smaller part won and I went in the other room. I know they are just little things, but they gross me out so bad. I decided to do up the dishes.
I was just putting the last pan away when Barney came into the kitchen. "Where's the mouse?" I asked him. "Show me." We had this thing where sometimes he would just sit and meow. One time he just wouldn't stop. So I got up off my chair and said that to him. He took a couple of steps and looked back at me over his shoulder. "I'm coming," I said and took a step toward him. He led me to the litter box which sorely needed emptying. I praised him and told him he was a good boy. After a few times of doing that, he had been trained. Whenever he would yowl, I would say that and inevitably he would lead me to the litter box or an empty food dish. He had his way of telling me what he needed.
So anyway I asked him to show me the mouse. And he took a few steps and looked back like usual. I followed him into the living room and he jumped up on the recliner. I thought he just wanted to lay down and went hunting for the mouse. But I couldn't find it. I looked high and low but no mouse. But Barney wasn't laying down either. I walked over to the chair and....... ewwwwwwwww. He had put the dead mouse on my chair. I guess it was my reward. hahaha
I hated disposing of all the little corpses. But it was better than finding them all over and alive I suppose. He never ate them or even chewed on them. He just brought them as prizes. One time I was telling the landlord about the exodus from the outside. He put things in perspective very quickly. He said, "Just think how you would feel if you didn't have the cat?" I never had a problem with disposal after that.
And now I will leave you with my favorite story about Barney. At the end I will tell you the title I gave it. I'd tell you know but I don't want to spoil the surprise.... LOL
It was a crisp Fall evening. It had rained early on and then the winds picked up and swirled the leaves all around. I couldn't wait to get home. I hated driving in the rain. Everything is so distorted through the windshield. It was going to be a long night. I could feel it. It rained off and on all night. Finally I got to go home around 4 am.
When I pulled into the driveway the headlights flashed over the french doors on the bottom level. I couldn't believe my eyes. The doors were wide open! "Oh, my God," I thought. "Barney must be out." I felt the panic rise to my throat.
I had stopped at the store so I went in the back door to put the things in the refrigerator before I started to go looking for Barney. To my utter amazement, he was laying on the recliner where he always was. I must say I was confused. But then he really didn't like the outdoors anyway.
I put the stuff in the fridge and headed downstairs to close the doors. A huge pile of leaves were in the middle of the room. They must have been open for quite a while for all those leaves to be there. I cleaned up the mess figuring no harm, no foul. After all, I hadn't needed to get the search party out.
I made a sandwich, turned on the TV and sat down to unload the 12-hour shift off my psyche. It felt good to be home. Barney came up to survey the sandwich situation. He was satisfied but not convinced he would want any part of it. He jumped down on the floor and headed for his own dish.
I was watching a movie when all of a sudden I heard a strange sound. I had never heard it before and couldn't for the life of me figure out what it was. It wasn't very loud, but still audible. And it sounded something like Eeeeeek. But it wasn't a mouse, I knew that.
I looked for Barney and he was in the corner where the sound was coming from. Not knowing what I was about to encounter I went to get the broom. The floor was carpeted but not stapled down and he was scratching at the edge of it in the corner. Every time he scratched, I would hear that sound.
I shooed him away and lifted the corner of the carpet very carefully. Talk about confused! It was a frog! I never knew frogs made sounds. I picked him up and brought him outside. We lived near a brook so he would find his way back home. I returned to my movie telling Barney he had been nice in not killing the poor thing. He ignored me.
After a few minutes I put the movie on pause to use the rest room. I could go nowhere without Barney following me. Not even there. I watched him let himself into the shower stall behind the curtain and again I heard that familiar sound. I thought, "What the hell?"
In there there were two more frogs. Now I was getting worried. Was I going to find one in my bed? I picked them up, congratulated Barney and brought them outside like the first one. I returned to my movie. I figured if one was in my bed he would still be there when I got there.
In ten minutes... again with that noise that I had now decided was the poor little things screaming. Again out the door and back to the movie.
I could go on and on. I won't. First of all there was no frog in my bed. At least he didn't do that to me. But in the end I had rescued thirteen frogs and released them back to where they belonged. The good things was there was no corpses. Although a couple of them did have two or three puncture marks. It was probably from trying to get away from him as he carried them into the house.
Barney the Hunter, I called him after that. And being there were the lucky thirteen of them, I decided to call it The Night of the Living Frog. And in case you're wondering what a frog scream sounds like, click the link below and you can hear one first hand.
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=2c1_1189220784
Barney... a name that will live with me forever. The soother, the listener, the hunter, the entertainer. I'm glad I made the trip that day to the rescue house. I'm glad I had the ability to delve deep within to resolve the issues I had with life, liberty and the hot pursuit. I'm glad I had the opportunity to learn from my fur person how wonderful it is to be loved no matter what kind of mood I was in, no matter if I was working or not, no matter how I looked, NO MATTER....
However... you would think that ONE of those frogs would have been Prince Charming, dontcha think?
I will leave you now with words from Thomas Campbell... "To live in the hearts we leave behind is not to die."
Goodbye, Barney. I was blessed.
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